Fall Swimming

 

Pascal had a busy morning with me doing barn chores and going for a short ride.  Lots of rain last night created plenty of water for lying in!  Pascal says he’ll lead the swimming expeditions and if you ask nicely he’ll show you the huge deer leg he found and then buried under a fallen log for safe keeping. 

Miles, my old border collie, did a similar thing in irrigation ditches when he was younger, we called it “playing alligator” because only the top of his head and eyes would be out of the water. 

Barn Dogs Go to Work at The Office

Rizzo and Pascal are enjoying helping with unpacking the office in the barn.  This packing material was great fun to shred, though they made funny faces as the thin paper began to dissolve in their mouths!

Rizzo thinks my green office chair is fabulous. She likes to run up it, pause momentarily to look out the window at the horses, then she flips around and slides headfirst down the chair.  

 

She squirrels around to find the best positions as well. 

We go for walks so the dogs can learn the perimeter of the property, sometimes visiting with the horses along the fence lines.

 And occasionally the dogs even run out of gas and take naps.

Desensitizing to Elk Hide

We do all kinds of odd desensitizing exercises here at Bit of Honey Training.  Most recently we took a field trip to Amy and Sue's barn.  Amy's husband (legally and with a permit) got an elk last weekend and had skinned it for the meat for their family, then thoroughly cleaned the hide for use as a training tool for the horses.  Amy had worked with Zora in hand the day before with the hide draped over the round pen wall.  While fairly brave, as a four year old Zora had never seen anything quite like this before and was understandably nervous.

 

The elk hide still had a slightly pungent odor to it, and as prey animals it makes sense that horses would be anxious about a hide.  If there's a dead animal, there could be predators close by!  

After arriving, we got ourselves parked in the driveway and I unloaded the horses.

I took Dewey over to the round pen first, since he's had the most desensitizing over the years.  He's been to a million horse shows, horse expos, done freestyle performances in costumes with the dogs, and generally trusts me even in odd circumstances.  I first took him into the round pen and we merely walked past it, with me between him and the elk hide.  We did several laps of the round pen this way, both directions, always with me between him and the hide.  

Each time Dewey walked past without paying much attention to the hide I'd give him a cookie from my yellow bucket.  Once he was familiar with it but not concerned at all, I let him get a bit closer to inspect, continuing to reward his approaches to the hide with treats.

In general Dewey wasn't worried about it.  This is a great illustration of how over many years of doing weird things with him (hula hoops, mattresses, tinsel, costumes...)  he has learned to be brave in the face of new things.  I don't care if a horse never walks across a tarp, what matters to me is that they learn how to be brave when presented with new things, and to look to me for direction and comfort if they're concerned.  Dewey's nonchalant reaction to the elk hide, a totally novel stimulus, is the perfect example of how he's learned to be brave over the years and to look to me as to how to handle himself in the face of something potentially scary.

 

Eventually Dewey did even touch it with his nose!  I then turned him loose in the round pen with the hide draped over the wall.  He pranced around a little, then returned to the hide to touch it with his nose and get a cookie.

After investigating it at liberty, he decided the hide was no threat, but he should be on alert for whatever predator dispatched the animal.  The neighbor's barn had a few horses working in the arena, but the lay of the land was such that Dewey could only see the horse and human's head periodically as they popped up over the hilltop.  This intermittent movement on the horizon was of some concern, so Dewey spent time staring at it in an effort to determine if that was the predator.  He also looked the other direction at the other neighbor's goats, who were also lurking ominously at the property line.

Definitely a huge success, though, as Dewey was in general alert but really calm.  Love that Super Dew!

 

Ferriana went with us, too.  She had similar unexciting reactions to the hide, with similar inspections of the neighbors.  I did handle her a bit differently than Dewey, as her mind works differently than his.  She's a hotter and smarter horse, so I needed to give her something to focus on to redirect her attention back to me.  If I just puttered around like with Dewey, she would have taken charge of the situation herself and ignored me.  So we did some in-hand work over the obstacles Amy had set up in the arena, like the small jumps (which Ferriana loves).

We did address the hide, but she didn't care much.

I did turn her loose in the round pen with me and she wandered around eating weeds and generally being sociable.

 

Lastly I took the dogs out on their leashes and we watched Amy and Zora work with the hide.  It actually helped a lot to have Zora watch both Dewey and Ferriana.  Neither one of them was very concerned about the hide, so when Zora had her turn in the round pen she wasn't too concerned either.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF69BRxR1Q4

 

Rizzo was very attentive, just in case Amy needed her help.  We were sitting just outside the round pen, so Rizzo could watch everything and she definitely thought she should intervene once or twice!

Pascal was more nonchalant about offering assistance.  He was more interested in digging a series of small holes at my feet in search of tree roots to chew on.  He does this at home occasionally too, we always say he's setting booby traps.  Pascal is always willing to pause for snuggles, though.

 

Appreciating the Saturday Night View

I went for a quick ride bareback with Raven and the dogs in the back forty Saturday night, and it always makes me appreciate how extremely good my life is.

This house is the coolest - who wouldn't want to live here?

 

Camping in Wyoming

Last week I went camping with Raven, Dewey, Rizzo, and Pascal.  Carol, Shambhu, Ladd, and Bhakti joined us for the first day, then actually had to head home because another camper's dog bit Ladd on his back leg and it was in a bad place to cause further problems.  After Carol left, Owen then joined me the next day so I could stay and do my whole trip.

We parked and camped at the horse corrals just North of Vedauwoo off of I-80 in Wyoming. I'd been to Vedauwoo before but never to these particular corrals and trails.  They are really well built and safe, but previous campers didn't disperse their manure very well so there were a lot of flies when it got hot.  The corrals themselves were clean, but manure had been dumped all over around the corrals instead of properly spread out so it would break down.  I was glad we'd brought fly sheets and bug spray for those couple afternoons when it was hot. 

 

The first day (before the dog bit Ladd), I rode Raven and Carol rode Shambhu.  We explored around the campsite and in the big field that had a stock water tank in it.

This photo of Rizzo leading the way for Carol and Shambhu, frolicking with her ears flapping in the wind makes me smile.

For the next ride I was on my own, I took the dogs and rode Dewey out the forest service road until I got to some trails.  We ended up doing a six mile loop Friday.  Dewey was incredible, super laid back but with a nice forward walk, never spooking and rarely putting a foot wrong.

 

By Saturday Owen had joined me, but an incredible amount of smoke in the air from wildfires in states to the west of us had blown into the area.  Because we didn't want to exercise in such poor quality air we ended up hanging out and reading, snacking, and napping most of the day.  

By afternoon much of the smoke had moved out so Owen and I went for a quick run/ride with Raven and the dogs.  We did the same six mile loop I'd done with Dewey the day before.  Raven was very "up" and much more forward than normal, which made me think she needs lots more of these chill rides to separate trail rides from cross country runs.  Additionally I'll have the vet check her out to make sure she's not painful somewhere causing her to be so agitated.

Our last day there Owen and I went exploring with Dewey and the dogs.  Because all these trails are new to us we ended up in some very technical areas, with lots of rocks, steep inclines, and drop-offs.  We also passed through groves of aspen trees which will be stunning in a few weeks when the leaves turn yellow, and some gorgeous meadows in between trails through mountain passes.  We crossed water a couple times and went down a mountainside that was rocky enough that Dewey had to basically squat down with his hind end, and then carefully place his front feet down each rocky step.  

  

 

 

Here are more videos from Dewey's long ride.  These are the easy portions of the trails we covered, because I forgot my GoPro (why can't I remember to put it on my helmet?!) I was holding my cell phone with one hand and neck reining with the other.

This ride was just over 12 miles and four hours.  It was definitely the longest ride Dewey has done, with the most difficult terrain he's ever seen.  He managed all this extremely well, with very little guidance from me.  He has now officially earned his title of Barefoot Mountain Thoroughbred, so he joins the ranks of Highboy, Raven, and Note with that esteemed distinction.

I love these photos of the dogs napping back at the trailer.  They are usually super busy and "on" all the time, so capturing them asleep is always fun.  Rizzo loves her camping mat, when she's not sleeping in my chair.

Pascal thought that the mattress and pillows in the gooseneck of the trailer were pretty awesome, though he actually prefers to spend his nights sleeping in his crate on top of the bureau. 

It was such a fun trip, despite the smoke and Carol needing to head home early.  I'm grateful to have these amazing trails and campgrounds so close to home, only about an hour drive.  Hopefully we'll get to go back in September and see the leaves turn my favorite shade of yellow!